The major story in the sporting world was from the world of college football — specifically… The University of Miami.  There have been a lot of stories over the past 4 months of major universities providing benefits to players.  Ohio State, North Carolina, and Oregon come to mind.  But… all of those stories PALE in comparison to what happened at The University of Miami thoughout the past decade.  This story is the result of one man, Nevin Shapiro, coming clean while behind bars.

Shapiro was part of an extremely lucrative illegal ponzi scheme that netted him an exhorbitant amount of money.  With this money, he decided he was going to be the biggest, most powerful booster the University of Miami, or the entire NCAA, had ever seen.  Shapiro didn’t just give these guys a little pocket money or even buy them a car, he fully supported them.  If a player wanted to go out or needed something, Nevin just floated them as much cash as they needed.  He would even throw decadent parties at major hotels complete with drugs, alcohol, and prostitutes.  Audits of Shaprio’s books show lavish spending on parties in the tens of thousands of dollars.  But here’s the kicker — he did it for a long time, and with a lot of recognizable names.  Willis McGahee, Sean Taylor, Vince Wilfork, Devin Hester — all were benefactors to Shapiro’s spending.

So why did Shapiro come clean?  First off, he’s in jail and wanted to make a deal to reduce his prison sentence.  But the more notable and interesting reason:  he felt betrayed.  When he was having money problems, he went back to the same guys he used to help out — guys who now have lucrative NFL contracts.  But they didn’t help, they ignored him.  Shapiro felt like he had been abandoned; that he was used.  It’s actually quite understandable.  When asked WHY he did all this boosting in the first place, (which is quite an interesting question, considering you have to wonder what was in it for him), he said he did it because he could.  It’s that simple.  He had the money, and he wanted to.

And in the NFL, it looks like Detroit Lions 2nd-year defensive tackle, Ndamukong Suh, is coming along nicely.  This guy is a monster and will soon develop into a superstar.  He’s just such a behemoth, often being compared to the NFL what Shaq was to football; that is that he’s so massive, that opponents just flop off him.  Well, Suh better be careful, because the NFL already thinks he’s hitting too hard.  In a preseason game against the Bengals, Suh tackled QB Andy Dalton with a vicious hit.  That can be akin to being hit by a car.  The NFL fined Suh $20,000, to which Suh replied on Twitter, “$20,000really?”.  The NFL is just trying to send a message that they don’t want people hit to concussion levels.  But this has created a huge controversy, because the NFL has always been about the biggest and toughest warriors.  There’s not really a middle ground.